A review by mamalemma
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard
4.0
Thoroughly enjoyable memoir with some great flashes of insight. The audiobook is particularly well worth it, as the author — who keeps cracking himself up — also can’t help but provide commentary on his own book. He adds footnotes to his footnotes, and the audiobook has got to be at least a third more content than the printed book.
Izzard is a comedian, actor, transgendered person and charitable multi-marathoner (27 marathons in 27 days!). None of this, he says as he starts the book, makes him seem particularly interesting. I disagree; he is quite interesting. His life story and his insight into himself is engaging and has real depth. He has presented himself without decoration, and comes off as very human, with charm and foibles in equal measure; a quality not generally seen in memoirs, especially of those in the public eye. It is quite refreshing.
Since I listened to the book, I wasn’t able to highlight quotes, but here are a few that really resonated with me:
“If you think you can’t do a thing, you will not be able to do it. If you think you can do something, then you have a chance of achieving it. Believing doesn’t mean you will instantly be able to, but you’ve got to believe that you can, otherwise you definitely won’t be able to do it. I’ve seen a number of people who I thought could do something brilliant and creative but they didn’t seem to believe in themselves and therefore didn’t, or couldn’t, do it.”
“Real life is actually a lot of boring things with occasional spikes of interest.”
“Stamina is the big thing you have to learn if you want to achieve success in any kind of career, but especially creative careers.”
“The twenty-first century is a key century for us on this planet. Either we make a world, where all seven billion people have a fair chance in this century - or forget it. If we can't do this, I don't think we are going to make it as a species. Despair is the fuel of terrorism, and hope is the fuel of civilization, so we have to put more hope into the world than despair. Hatred and separation and building walls is not the way to progress. Going backward is not the way to go forward.”
Izzard is a comedian, actor, transgendered person and charitable multi-marathoner (27 marathons in 27 days!). None of this, he says as he starts the book, makes him seem particularly interesting. I disagree; he is quite interesting. His life story and his insight into himself is engaging and has real depth. He has presented himself without decoration, and comes off as very human, with charm and foibles in equal measure; a quality not generally seen in memoirs, especially of those in the public eye. It is quite refreshing.
Since I listened to the book, I wasn’t able to highlight quotes, but here are a few that really resonated with me:
“If you think you can’t do a thing, you will not be able to do it. If you think you can do something, then you have a chance of achieving it. Believing doesn’t mean you will instantly be able to, but you’ve got to believe that you can, otherwise you definitely won’t be able to do it. I’ve seen a number of people who I thought could do something brilliant and creative but they didn’t seem to believe in themselves and therefore didn’t, or couldn’t, do it.”
“Real life is actually a lot of boring things with occasional spikes of interest.”
“Stamina is the big thing you have to learn if you want to achieve success in any kind of career, but especially creative careers.”
“The twenty-first century is a key century for us on this planet. Either we make a world, where all seven billion people have a fair chance in this century - or forget it. If we can't do this, I don't think we are going to make it as a species. Despair is the fuel of terrorism, and hope is the fuel of civilization, so we have to put more hope into the world than despair. Hatred and separation and building walls is not the way to progress. Going backward is not the way to go forward.”